The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
MARCHING FOR OUR LIVES By Pam McLoughlin
Thousands fill town’s green for gun-control rally
GUILFORD — Thousands who filled the town green on Saturday in one of 800 nationwide March for Our Lives guncontrol rallies, had one overriding message for the nation’s leaders: If you don’t ban assault weapons, bump stocks, ghost
guns and take other measures on gun control, you will not get our votes.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who received resounding cheers and chants of “Murphy for President,” said this was the day the world would see the people power behind the gun-control movement.
“We are standing up in record numbers across this county,” he said. “We’re bigger and more powerful than the gun lobby. The world is seeing it today.”
Murphy said two weeks ago his son, a
kindergartner experienced his first active-shooter drill. In his case, students are to cram into a bathroom in the classroom.
“I didn’t like it,” Murphy’s son told him, bringing tears to the senator’s eyes.
Murphy said no 6-yearold, 16-year-old or any other student, “should have to wonder if they’re going to survive a day at school.” He said children living in urban areas shouldn’t feel unsafe walking to the corner store.
He said if gun laws don’t change, voters should make their objections known at the ballot box.
Murphy said after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School that killed 20 first-graders and six adults, fighting for gun control has become “a labor of love” for him.
He said young protesters made the difference in Vietnam, in the civil rights movement, in marriage equality and they will do it on the gun-control issue.
While marchers of all ages took to the streets —
grandmothers with walkers were holding gun-control signs — teen-agers moved by the school shootings in Parkland, Fla., who gave the most compelling speeches and readings on stage.
Daniel Hand High School students Kate Klein and Grace McFadden, both 16 and juniors, organized their high school walkout on March 14 as part of a nationwide movement.
Klein, who spoke at the rally, said the Parkland shootings hit home because that community is supposed to be safe like Madison or Guilford, and the victims look like people she knows.
“We are standing up and saying, ‘This is not okay. We’re not looking for prayers,’ ” she said.
McFadden read a moving poem by a Parkland survivor.
Ella Franzoni, a high school senior from Clinton, spoke eloquently on stage, saying she heard her age group referred to as the “mass shooting generation,” on television — but that isn’t how they want to be known. She said since she was born in 2000, the U.S. has racked up 194 school shootings, and no one has gotten used to the shaky cellphone videos taken from under desks and inside closets.
“My generation is waking up,” she said. “We see the lies of a corrupt system.”
Stockton “Stocky” Clark, of Hamden, arrived at the green two hours early, as did many others, and enthusiastically purchased an orange T-shirt reading: “How many kids does it take to change our gun laws?” He bought the shirt from the group CT Against Gun Violence.
Clark said he wants to see a ban on assault weapons.
“I’m outraged by the lack of leadership and common sense in our Congress and president … We are very near a tipping point in terms of the demise of democracy,” Clark said. “Most of all, we have to protect our children and not turn our schools into war zones.”
New Haven residents Mike Gill and Joanne Paone-Gill, said they believe it will be this generation, some of their nine grandchildren among them, who will make the real difference in tightening gun-control laws. She said she was proud their young grandchildren joined the March 14 nationwide school walkout — against the will of their school officials.
“These are the kids who are our future politicians,” and Joanne Paone-Gill said. “It’s on not enough to see something and say something. We need to do something.”
She said it’s enough to take guns away, noting the problem stems from several areas, including the heavy influence of the National Rifle Association from the halls of Congress and the White House — a sentiment also expressed on many protest signs.
While there was no organized counter rally, Steve Bristol, of Clinton, sat in his car with a huge handmade sign on the dashboard and visible through the windshield that read: “You want the govt the founders feared.”
Although no one appeared to react to the sign, Bristol decided to put it in the trunk, fearing someone might damage his car, “and I like my car,” he said.
Bristol said he is not a member of the NRA and does not own weapons, but is a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights. “I believe their goal is to take down the Second Amendment,” he said of those a few feet on the green. He said Democrats are incrementally chipping away at the Second Amendment.
After the thousands walked a symbolic 0.8-mile march, local lawmakers spoke, notably state Sen. Ted Kennedy Jr., D-Branford.
Looking at the vast crowd and strongly worded signs, Kennedy said as someone who lost two uncles to gunfire — and whose sprawling family has had to relive the tragedies through news clips and the Zapruder film — he was never prouder than Saturday to be a member of the shoreline community.
Kennedy said his family has never been a fan of the NRA, the organization last year gave $38 million to politicians. But Saturday’s show of solidarity on the gun-control issue sent a far more powerful message.
Mike Song, whose son Ethan Song, 15, of Guilford, was killed by a gunshot in a local home months ago, performed John Lennon’s, “Imagine.”
Mike Song said there is no way to change the past, but he can help prevent tragedies in the future.
“I believe reasonable people can come to agreement,” on issues such as background checks, wait times and more, he said.
He said losing Ethan is “like having part of your soul ripped out,” but,“We are going to make a meaningful change.”